Swap Blog

Dan at Cerulean Sanctum takes on just that question with his recent post - Just how hard is to be saved?

Dan gives us a analysis of two of the most prevelant views on determining salvation - i.e. is it hard is it easy, what is required, how to deal with those that fall away, how to resolve those that come at times of sinful awareness in comparision to those that come when they are at low points. Dan also includes some relevent scriptures to the debate where the reader can see what the Bible has to say about such things. In the end, Dan discusses the problems within some of the main views on the topic of determining who is saved and who is lost. He also asks his readers to chip in with their views. Good stuff, give it a read, give it a deep think, and if you feel you have a good answer please share it with Dan or us.

Milton Stanley of Transforming Sermons with his post OUCH combines with Jeff at Anti Itch Medication’s post Feel It to discuss a long time issue that Team Swap has had with many churches - crushing believers.

Jeff’s quote from C. S. Lewis describing the church and how we handle other believers “We castrate the gelding and then bid him be fruitful.” is very true. For too long churches have taken broken people and crushed them, instead of taking broken people and building them into complete people.

Over the last year of so we have tackled that issue several times with this blog, do a search in the blog search box - for church attendance, encouragement, supporting believers, helping the poor, lone ranger Christians, etc - if you are interested, but our most direct attract on the nature of churches breaking people was when we talked about why men don’t come to church (here). -

In summary, church does not need to support or encourage the bad habits of a man, but it does need to support the positive steps of a man as he struggles with being a man of God. Church needs to be a place that encourages and supports a man, not just one more place he hears about his failures. The same is true of women, and children, as well.

Churches have reached the point where they are more about building co-dependent believers then building strong Christians. We see more and more group activities, team building, etc and less work to disciple individuals and build internal strength within the body. The body of Christ quiver’s in the basement of the church instead of stepping onto the sidewalk and meeting the world. As we have said in the past, this nature comes from leaders, and fellow believers, that do not want to take the time to develop deeper personal relationships that lead to personal discipleship due to personal time conflicts and issues. A additional force that causes such things, is leaders that fear building stronger Christians will lead to a decrease or challenge of their personal power.

To draw a different analogy, God’s church is a V24, 6000 Hp motor that runs most of the time on 2 - 3 knocking cylinders with a stripped out tranny due to lack of proper maintenance (both on the corporate and personal levels). The lack of maintenance results from believers that are discourage and crushed not feeling they are needed, wanted, vital, or important within the body. We give them no new hope, just a new set of rules to live by. We shower them will words, but show them no actions. We tell them to follow a plan, even if the plan does not fit them. We want them to serve, but only where we want them to serve.

I know this is tough stuff, but it is real. We discourage believers far more then we encourage them. Encouraged, excited, motivated people are infectious and that is a infection that many churches run to kill ASAP fearing that it will spread and require more commitment or devotion then they are willing to give.

Find a fellow Christian that you can personally invest in and encourage. You do not need to have a degree in anything from anywhere to be a encourager. Use the phone, use a letter / card, use email, use what ever, but find someone, regardless of their age and current stage - shattered, broken, piecing it together, chipped, etc, and help them reach fullness.

No one can weaken God, God is not changed by our failures, our flubs, and our faults, He merely invest more and is more devoted the more we need. He is the good Father and He loves His children. God is about fully empowered, fully rebuilt, fully charged followers. He can and will use all that come to Him.

The Knoxville News Sentinel has a story this AM (here) about an attempt by the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation to find the ancestor’s of those who lost family in the Cross Mountain (1911 explosion) and the Fatersville (1902 explosion) mine explosions. Over 1000 children were left fatherless by the explosions, and they think there are 1000 of ancestors out there to be found. The foundation is also going to offer tours of the mines, history lessons, etc in a upcoming event on October 15th. Carol Moore, spokeswoman for the Coal Creek Watershed Foundation, can be contacted at 865-584-0344 or clmoore@geoe.com for more information.

The Fatersville mine explosion has long been of interest to me and the fact that there is attention coming to it makes me very satisfied. The Fatersville accident was one of the worst mining accidents in the history of the US and the stories that I have read of the people left behind and the notes left by the miners to their families are just utterly humbling and amazing to me. It is hard to imagine a entire community being completely destroyed by one accident. The Fatersville mine accident virtually wiped out all the males in a community. Even Katrina and Rita in all their force and might did not render communities dead. Mine accidents in the early 20th century could and did that regularly.

Fatersville Mine Disaster Link & Coal Creek War Fatersville Mine Site and one of my favorite bluegrass songs is When the Mines Grew Still At Fatersville written by John Rice Irwin and performed by Tony Thompson. There are other good links out there as well, so please look into it more for your own if you are interested.

Sigmund, Carl & Alfred via links to Dr Sanity and MOM (Maxed Out Mama) has some deep thought in a short post (here) In one post SC &A covers the idea that the Supreme Court must have a certain make up to represent America, the war in Iraq, feminism issues in the Arab World, as well as euthanasia in the Netherlands and what that would look like in the US. Lots to think about + lots of good ideas + done in a small space = good stuff give it a read.

Hope you have a great Friday

Big Orange Michael recently had a post about Sept 24th - Oct 1st being - read a banned book week - (Full post here) Michael challenges his readers to participate with him and read a banned book this week. I personally will leave that option up to you, but I will say that some of the books on the list are very good, and some are really terrible.

That, the nature of some of the books on the list, is what I want to hit on here. First of all I have a belief that good books will rise to the top long term. Short term society may run to an from pop lit, but long term readership will find/ rediscover good literature. I personally think that it is perfectly fine to write, publish, read, etc a book that I do not like, but just because a book is controversial or popular does not make it good. With that said, I am not bit surprised to see that both Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer remain on the list of “challenged” books. Most people know why, and I will not waste everyone’s time recounting the arguments both for and against the books. That is one long running debate which I will not get into, at least not today. No what I want to look at is some of the other books that are challenged regularly, pointing out just a few that are just down right stupid to even challenge -

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - possibly the SECOND most boring book ever behind Ethan Frome, but definitely not worthy of being banned, except maybe due to boredom
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - WHAT???
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - WHAT??? who tries to ban Steinbeck
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - WHAT???
but dumbest of all -Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford - WHO IN THE WORLD WOULD TRY TO BAN WALDO…I mean come on and pick a book that is at least offensive to SOMEONE!!!

My point is that some of the books on the list are really good, but are still challenged, simply because of their topic. Again controversy or shock value does not make a book good, but a good book can be both controversial and shocking. Long term good books should be read, regardless of topic, and inferior literature should be left to dye in the wastebin of history, not due to content but due to inferior text and quality. This, the decay of inferior books, should be accomplished simply by reader selection over time.

Jonah 4:5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

Jonah 4:9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?”
“I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.”

Jonah 4:10 But the LORD said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

I know that you have probably read the story of Jonah 1000 times, but for me there are so many important lessons in this small book of the Bible that I keep going back to it. My favorite chapters are 3 and 4, you know the ones that few people read because Jonah has already been thrown up by the whale. Like most things in life, the lessons in the later part of Jonah are often missed, but not because of the quality of the lesson, but because the text itself is not popular. We as Christians can become guilty of only studying certain parts of the Bible, - i.e. the ones we know, the ones that are easier to understand, the ones that are most obviously related to our lives directly at the moment, the ones that more literature is written for and about - , if we are not careful, but that is not what is on my heart today.

No, what is on my heart today is how many times we are like Jonah when it comes to the good things in our life. We do NOTHING for them. Yes, I know you work, etc but in the end you, nor I, deserve to live as well as we do. We do not deserve to have all that we have. Truthfully, our lives are gifts from God and all the things we have in this life are blessings from the Father. The desires of God is to not give us what we deserve, but instead to give to us out of bounty and bless us with His love.

Understand, I am not teaching a wealth and prosperity gospel here, no not at all. All I am saying is that God desires to give us more then we deserve, and we become so use to it that when we do not get our way we complain. In the end, we enjoy the pleasures that the blessings of God brings to our lives, but when those blessings are not there anymore, or do not come when and how we want them too , then we complain about their disappearance.

That is the thing that I am noting today. While we are enjoying our unearned pleasures and complaining about their removal or our the change in them, we completely miss the larger issues and larger struggles going on around us. We miss those things because they are things that do not directly benefit us. We miss them because they are things that are not important to us. We miss them because they require some additional work on our part, and those are things (time & effort) that we are not willing to give up.

Jonah wanted to see Nineveh destroyed because Nineveh was the local super power that consistently sacked, attacked, and destroyed Jonah’s fellow citizens. Jonah’s heart was NEVER right toward the Ninevites, yet God still used Jonah anyway. Jonah and God’s use of him at Nineveh is a perfect example of God using His people to bless the world in spite of the attitude and ways of His people. Let’s us all pray God never uses us like He used Jonah, i.e. basically in spite of ourselves and our attitude.

Simply, I believe that Jonah is a example of where many Christians are today. Many Christians today, like Jonah, are more involved with personal issues, personal opinions, personal attitudes, personal basis, and personal gain then they are about accomplishing the work and will of God. We Christians, you and me both, get to this place because we allow our personal issues to become larger and more important then they really are, or even should be.
When we are “born into” Christ are suppose to die to self. That means our self, including all our attitudes, views, opinions, etc, are not to be prioritized. Just because we feel a certain way, or because we feel a certain thing, does not mean that it is God’s will or His way. Too many times we assume that the world, and all of it’s treasures, are here for our personal use and enjoyment, we never consider that there may be other factors larger then ourselves involved. Our selfish sinful heart’s, both mine and yours, do not mirror God’s will many times, and if we plan to be fruitful in God’s plan we must remember that we serve Him, He does not serve us. To put it another way, role reversal is a huge problem within the body of Christ. God is the parent, we are His kids. He knows what is best for us, He knows what we need, He knows what we are struggling with, etc.

So today, let’s focus on others, including their needs, and God’s plan to use us in lives of others. Let us not assume that the things that we enjoy are deserved, and remember that they are God’s and we are just borrowing them. Let us all work at forgetting the past, forgetting our sour attitudes and views, forgetting the wrongs done to us. God forgets and forgives us, we should do the same for others. Overall, I would challenge everyone to be sure that they are not being used of God in spite of themselves, and that there are no “grudges” that we harbor against others that are keeping us from being effective in the kingdom. His stuff, His rules, His plans and His time lead to our success.

Stay strong, be courageous, and serve God in all things.

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If topic sort of builds off a post of ours from a few month’s ago - Forgotten Lessons, so if you would like to read some more about oft forgotten Bible lessons give it a read as well

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred has a very interesting post this AM that reports the findings of a British survey that shows only 12% of “average/ normal people” (hairdressers, cap drivers, etc) know what podcasting is, and only some 28% know what a blog is. Most seemed to mistake the term blogging of the term dogging which is the activity of watching couples have sex in semi secluded places (leave it too the Brits..oh well). In the end one is basically left to conclude that the blogging, podcasting, etc trends that are so reported and discussed may only be within the media culture bubble, and may not be as impactful in the broad community as reported. Interesting stuff. Give the full post a read at SC&A with more details and information here.